Turner
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"Through North American Recreation Industries, Power formed a partnership with Los Angeles-based National General Corp. (a movie- theatre chain) and the Montreal Bronfman family, with its shopping centre and mall interests, to create the Canadian theatre chain, Na¬ tional General Cinemas. Power under Thomson and Turner had the vision to see the potential of putting smaller-screen theatres into shop¬ ping malls and office buildings, and had seven in place by 1968. Plans were under way for expanding the theatre chain in step with the shopping-mall building craze."
"• To accomplish these goals, I sketched out a second list: • Retire from TCI. • Reduce outside public board memberships from 11 to 4. • Remain chairman and controlling shareholder in Liberty. • Remain chairman of CableLabs. • Stay on the Turner board. • Get the government off TCI’s back. • Generate predictable income by deferring TCI compensation payments with stock dividends, which should produce sufficient cash to maintain our lifestyle. • Say nothing publicly about the contemplated change until Bob Magness is comfortable."
"“When you’re running a business, you’ve got to run a business,” Tisch said. “You have to make sure that you can survive, whether business gets a little better or a little worse. Maybe Turner would have done the same things. I don’t know. But all three networks have done the same things. We were first was our only problem.”"
"Working from a Los Angeles office, Milken had created a $125 billion pool of capital that had helped tiny companies swallow giants and permitted obscure executives to gain control of world-famous busi- nesses. So effective was his operation that a mere statement that Milken believed he could raise a financial war chest in pursuit of a particular corporate quarry—a so-called "highly confident" letter—could cause panic at the company targeted for takeover. Secretive, feared by competitors, and closely monitored by securities regulators, Milken already played an enormous role in the communications industry. During his time at Drexel, he channeled some $26 billion into MCI, McCaw, Metromedia, Viacom, TCI, Time Warner, Turner, Cablevision Systems, News Corporation, and other cable, telecom, wireless, publish- ing, and entertainment companies."